Libraries
In keeping with the Black radical tradition and the story of the Israelites plundering the Egyptians before they fled Egypt (Exodus 12:35-38), I see my job as a library fellow to be transgressive insofar as I encourage students to "steal Egyptian gold." Libraries are not just places to check out books but spaces where transformative visions can be cast, organizers and students can meet, and institutional knowledge can be turned upside down. Much like the late Black Mennonite, Vincent Harding, or modern Black intellectual Fred Moten, I believe it is the work of scholar-activists to figure out ways to be in but not of institutions. In other words, we must figure out ways to redistribute Pharoah’s spoils for the sake of the mixed multitude.
Two of the world’s great libraries — the Vatican Library in Rome and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University — have scanned and loaded the first of 1.5 million pages of ancient Hebrew, Greek, and early Christian manuscripts online Tuesday.
The project brings rare and priceless religious and cultural collections to a global audience for the first time in history.
The website is the first step in a four-year project and it includes the Bodleian’s 1455 Gutenberg Bible — one of only 50 surviving copies.
The $3.3 million project is funded by the Polonsky Foundation, which aims to democratize access to information. Leonard S. Polonsky is chairman of Hansard Global PLC, an international financial services company.
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When Kevin Barbieux became homeless in 1982, he was new to Nashville. At first, he relates in an e-mail interview, he spent his days hovering around a rescue mission. Then, as he met other homeless people who introduced him to the city’s attractions, he began to explore. He took long walks by the Cumberland River, visited the Tennessee State Museum—and found himself browsing the stacks of the downtown library.